Boots on the ground not an option

Fighting for their future: Students of Venezuela’s Central University holding an amnesty proposal for opposition leader and self-proclaimed ‘acting president’ Guaido in a protest against Maduro. —AFP

PRESIDENT Trump, you deserve credit for escalating diplomatic and economic pressures against Venezuela’s dictatorship. Please... don’t screw it up by encouraging speculation about a potential US military intervention.

That is exactly what the country’s de facto President Nicolás Maduro wants: to turn Venezuela’s political and humanitarian crisis into a confrontation between the United States and Venezuela, rather than what it really is – a confrontation between a dictator and the Venezuelan people.